


Mercy on All Souls

by HigharollaKockamamie



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Halloween, Someone Else Found Ardyn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 09:37:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21268931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HigharollaKockamamie/pseuds/HigharollaKockamamie
Summary: The guest of honor tells a bedtime story on a special night.





	Mercy on All Souls

Good evening. Might I come in? 

Ah, you've grown heavier. There, there. It's only me, your favorite. Is it the dark? I'll have a friend bring a little lantern. That's better.

I would advise you not to chew on him. 

Now, now. You mustn't cry for that deprivation, though I suspect no one will hear over the revelry, and your caretaker's sound sleep will hold until sunrise. Ah, I know. You want a story. Has no one yet told you the tale of tonight? Then I shall do the honors. 

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there lived a good prince. 

Well, not precisely a prince. There was not yet in those days such thing as princes and princesses, kings and queens, viscounts and dames and chatelaines. A more accurate term would perhaps be “wise man.” But you've little interest in the sociopolitical niceties, and 'prince' has a lovely ring to it, does it not? 

Naturally _you_ would think so. 

Most importantly, he was well-beloved, and for good reason. In those days monsters roved the land, fierce, fanged black beasts that nipped at humans' heels and ran rampant through their villages. This good prince hunted them down and gobbled them up. He had a very strong stomach. The people, freed, overflowed with gratitude, and he was celebrated and adored – why, quite as much as you are, I would venture. 

But all was not well. He ate and ate, and fair denuded the countryside of calamities, but there was one who did not thank him: his jealous, wicked stepbrother. He was not entirely without his own talents, but he resented the populace's love. Meanwhile the prince swallowed greater and greater monsters, and they wriggled and skriggled inside him. His skin turned sallow and his eyes black, but we mustn't judge by appearances, hm? 

Yet it was enough to sow fear, and the traitor took his chance. He declared the prince a monster himself and ordered him locked in a cell with the door bricked up after. 

And so time went on. The evil stepbrother died, but oh-our-hero did not.

Call it something he ate. 

A hundred years passed and another took the throne, this the queen now known as...what was it? Ah, yes. The Scholar. To tell it true, a more fitting name would have been the Curious. She heard the whispers of a secret prison, and, like many, wondered what terrible creature could be imprisoned there. Like few, she followed further. 

Her searchings led her to an island little more than a salt-encrusted stone, so near to shore, yet so cold, so lonesome, so bare and tempest-scoured. There she chipped away at the crumbling mortar between ancient bricks until she broke through to the forbidden sanctum where lay a corpse.

Imagine her disappointment. 

The wise would have resealed the entry and let it be, but she was victim to the certain rare sort of foolishness sometimes called “decency.” She took the poor thing away for a respectable burial. She was quite startled that night at her campfire when it stirred and woke. 

Here, let us go by the window. See the bonfirelight. Rather fun, isn't it? All that, in memory of a poor old fellow who could not so much as speak. 

Once she recovered from her shock, the inquisitive queen set to investigating. Yet he did not understand her speech, nor could he answer her many, many questions. To you alone I will confirm the secret a few have guessed: it was not that his mind was broken, nor his ears. It was only that time had made the language unfamiliar. Already the words of his home were drifting. In fact, his slow and hopeless thoughts were in a tongue now none but the most dreary of antiquarians comprehend. It sounded like this: _At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus, qui blanditiis—_

Yes, it is rather funny.

When the contents of the queen's mind were to no avail, she offered the contents of her pockets. From one, a ball of rice. From the other, a small round sweet. She left them before him and turned away, rather like one attempting to feed an unfriendly cat. When she turned back, the cake and the stranger were gone. 

Many have theorized and philosophized over that choice. Another secret, simple truth — it resembled the honeycakes of his home. It would be long years before he could identify the green-clad triangle he left behind. 

The ones with pickled plum in the center are best. 

The stranger was never seen again in the Scholar's lifetime. Then again, she was busy with other concerns, such as the watchful creatures that appeared in the night and vanished when drawn too near, and the extensive library she gathered. Large as it was and engrossed as she could become, she always made note of the certain volumes that fell open, now and then, untouched. Though it was she who gleaned the information, it was her daughter who cast aside the veil of secrecy from their ancestor's crime, and thus truly earned the moniker the Just. 

Who could say who was the first to leave an offering of a cake on the windowsill? Or whether it truly was a daemon who partook? 

The Lucis Caelum family were quick to take up the practice, but they always were odd fellows. Some say the devil is fond of them, and they are not without evidence. Such as the Conqueror and his armies that seemed to appear larger by night, or the Rogue to whom the shadows clung. The Warrior whose sorrows echoed through the empty halls, or the Wanderer for whom distances vanished in the dark of the moon. Or your own father, whose enemies have such trouble finding a way through his doors. 

Time is as fidgetsome a creature as yourself. As it passed, so too did tradition become attached to one night in the harvest when the bounty was shared with the creatures in the shadows, the annual price of forbearance. What began in solemnity in time became something of a joke, with children dressing in makeshift daemon guise to plot mischief and collect their own toll of treats. For there is a little monster in every human, and vice versa as well. 

Such heavy eyes. Shall I tell you one more secret? 

The monster-prince does not mind this sharing of the spoils. The true bribe is the memory. The skulls that adorn you day by day, and the rhymes and stories you tell.

How does the little song go? Ah, yes.

_Remember, remember, the one we dismembered_  
_The savior left 'lone to rot_  
_Give him a reason that terrible season_  
_Should never be for naught._

That, my dear, is why they dance, and why you need never fear the dark. 

Sleep well, Noct.


End file.
